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Google lays out Android roadmap, devs scheduled to get more love

Google feels really badly about that several month-long stretch where it kept any and all updates to its Android SDK out of the public limelight, developers, honest, but it wants to make it up to you. It seems that yesterday's 0.9 release, which represented the first official SDK available with a platform even remotely resembling what Google intends to release on retail devices this fall, was just the first in a string of goings-on leading up to the grand 1.0 launch in the coming months according to a new roadmap published on the Android site. To start, there'll be "additional Android 1.0 (pre) SDK releases made available, as necessary" in September, followed by the first 1.0-compatible release in the Q3 to Q4 timeframe (that's any time between now and the end of December, for you calendar-disadvantaged folk). Finally, the Android source will leak out in the fourth quarter along with the first "Android 1.0 devices" -- pay special attention to the plural "devices" there -- and an announcement about Android Developer Challenge II. It gives us a warm fuzzy to see that Google's interested in keeping its devs engaged with these contests on an ongoing basis, because let's be honest: "prize money" has a much nicer ring to it than "VC money" ever will.

[Via Talk Android]